Blade and Soul PvE and PVP Combat Tips

Updated on March 26, 2016

Blade and Soul Duel

While combat in blade and soul usually follows the same “mash buttons till stuff dies”, but there are always times where things get hectic and you need to stay on your toes. Here are some brief tips for general PVE and PVP combat so you can keep your head and stay in the game.

Watch The Enemy

Number 1 rule is to always keep your eye on the ball. Unless you are extremely overleveled, then you will be relying on being active and using your abilities to take your enemy down. Many of the moves in both PVE and PVP have tells or states. Knowing when these show up can net you a great opportunity if you can interrupt the attack or flow. For bosses, keeping an eye out for “Danger zones” that pop up will keep you alive till the end.

Watch Your HP

Its often easy to forget to check your HP in the middle of a fight. Many enemies have high damaging abilities, but not all of them have a “wind up” tell… or even one of those wide “danger zone” attacks that you just aren’t going to make it out of in time. Get ready to negate or defend against that damage or get ready to heal yourself to stay in the fight when the sudden drop in hp comes. In PVP get a feel for your opponent’s combos and damage so you can stay above the minimum.

Watch Your Focus

Similar to watching your HP, focus is pretty much your ammo in almost all cases that it gets discussed. If you are out of ammo, you probably are out of moves until you regenerate it unless your build revolves around resource cost cutting. Nothing feels worse than having an enemy beat on you while you have to manual attack to get your resources back… well, it would probably feel worse if the reason you died was that you weren’t paying attention and didn’t have enough focus to finish that group of dudes that are now punching your face in.

Kung Fu Master Kick

Combo

This semi goes hand in hand with watching your focus. A lot of this game goes into combos and combo paths. The various combo paths change based on what skills you decide to invest your points into, but there is one rule that governs them all. You cannot complete a combo if you do not have the focus to do it. No focus = No combos = No damage = Enemies not dying = You taking more fists to the face. In addition, you also have cooldowns that might prevent combos. In my case, I personally like to have multiple combo avenues I can start with using different skills and maybe fit a focus regen attack somewhere in the middle of them.

Crowd Control

Although death is the best form of crowd control, never underestimate the power of a knock-down, daze, grapple or stun. Although they count as different states for comboing or prerequisites for certain moves, they all prevent your opponent from fighting back. CC blocking moves are generally your basic dodge, resistance and counter moves, but catching an opponent in CC will force them to either eat your follow up attacks or burn one of their CC breakers. CC breakers are very few and have long cooldowns. Some moves can be turned into CC breaker moves with some skill points but that usually comes with the cost of everything else the move provides or could provide.

Build a Backup Plan

Personally, I am a huge advocate in having a backup plan for almost anything you do. PVP and overzealous PVE pulls will require a much more finesse than running away. For PVE, always have an aoe CC or a heal move at the ready. If CC is not ready, pull out your burst and best focus recovery moves and roll your face all over your keyboard and hope it’s enough. For PVP this definitely won’t fly. If you have already wasted your moves or left yourself without focus and your generators are on cooldown, reconsider your build and/or add points to a move to give it the utility you are missing.

Keep an "Oh Crap" Plan Ready

Similar to the backup plan above, but more for extreme emergencies. For example, in PVE if I’ve pulled a larger than intended group or my health is lower than I thought, Blade Dancers can use Dual Strike which returns a ton of HP from all enemies hit (unless I picked up the PVP daze pull instead… but this is my “Oh Crap” button for PVE. :P) For PVP you can have a skill that just buys you time or increases your defense. If you want to be really crafty, have a different combo line that uses a different set of moves and fit one of your recovery moves into it.

Remember Your Dodge Buttons

Always important but always forgotten, don’t forget you have your S, Q and E moves (if applicable). These moves are not only relevant in PVP but they are also relevant in PVE. If you see a person pop a burst combo or start a set of single target moves. Q or E around them to make them waste time; sometimes they might even miss you dodging behind them, hidden in the flurry of skill visual effects. S is always good to buy yourself time if the enemy has already used their closer abilities, or get away if you need a break and have disabled their movement abilities. (especially as a force master :P)

Kite / Kiting

No shame in kiting. Although extremely effective in PVE for the NPC’s “Wind Up” abilities, but it can still be tactically effective in PVP when it comes to getting a break or getting your cooldowns back. Extremely effective if you blew all of your abilities but your opponent still has his. While kiting, be sure to hold some CC incase your opponent does reach you, but you want to stay out of range of their closer abilities.

Negation

Often overlooked but very powerful for their cost in focus vs health lost. You will maybe have one move that only does this, but many of your other moves can have points put into them that add defensive or negation bonuses. Never underestimate the power of double or quadrupling your defense, or becoming knockdown immune or even, on the flip side of things, piercing defenses or blocking to make your opponent waste their negation abilities. Blocked or negated CC’s do not affect you and are now on cooldown for your opponent; thus giving you the advantage.

If you have any other tips or tricks or want to just say Hi, leave a comment below!